In our culture and even in our religious expressions it is our answers that are celebrated and heralded.

However, our awareness that we don’t have all the answers inspires lifelong learning. Henry David Thoreau is quoted as asking, “How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?”

The answers we cling to not only can inhibit continued growth but can fuel conflict and animosity. Patrick Henry (not the early American patriot but the modern day theologian) once wrote, “If I had to be sure all the time, I would despair. If I were sure all the time, I would be a menace to myself and to everyone around me.”

What the religious leaders in John 9 knew pushed them to the edge of being a menace to those around them. It seems the only thing they didn’t know for sure was whether it was the blind man or his parents who had sinned and had caused him to be born blind. They knew that one of them had sinned.

Surely the man’s blindness was God’s punishment for whatever sin had been committed.

They knew the Scriptures and the doctrines they had derived from their interpretation of the Scriptures. They knew the religious rituals and traditions that had been passed down from generation to generation. They knew the law and the punishments that were prescribed for breaking the law. They knew God.
They were not blind. They could see.

Anything that didn’t fit what they already knew was quickly rejected, viewed as dangerous and destructive. Anything that didn’t fit what they already knew filled their hearts with such fear that they couldn’t even celebrate the blind man’s healing.

Instead the healing stirred arguments among them. The healing fueled expressions of condemnation so oppressive that even the parents of the man who was healed distanced themselves from their own son rather than celebrate with him.

Their fear of what was outside what they knew led them to proclaim Jesus a sinner. Righteous people would not heal on the Sabbath. Righteous people don’t walk as far as the pool of Siloam on the Sabbath or encourage others to do so.

Righteous people don’t make mud on the Sabbath. Jesus was guilty. His hands were dirty. They could see the mud on Jesus’ hands.

The biggest hindrance to new insight, new understanding and a deeper awareness of God’s presence and activity in the world is what we think we already know.
If that was a challenge to the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, it is surely a challenge to those of us who live in the “information age,” the “age of knowledge.” We have more inform

ation and data at our fingertips today than we have ever had in all of history.

Pico Iyer wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece on March 21: “Humanity now produces as much data in two days as it did in all of history until 2003.” When I first read that, I doubted the validity of the statement.

Then I pondered the reality of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Wikipedia, blogs, newsfeeds and the myriad other digital information systems that allow individuals from around the globe to contribute to the expanse of available information.

We have gotten used to having so much data and are so used to knowing every detail that it is incomprehensible to us that a Boeing 777 airplane can go down in a remote region of the Indian Ocean and we not know what happened or where it is.

In news reports of the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing people questioned why we didn’t know in advance what these two brothers were going to do.

Ironically, it seems that the more information we have available the more dismissive we are of any information or experience that doesn’t fit with what we already know. Iyer quotes Noble Prize winning psychologist and economist Daniel Kahnemann, “It is our nature to overestimate how much we understand the world. It is our folly to assume that we know very much at all.”

That is Jesus’ warning to the Pharisees when he says at the end of John 9, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

This is why I am personally, deeply committed to provide leadership to a confessional church rather than a creedal church. A creedal church says, “This is what we know.”

A confessional church says, “This is what we think we know, but we might be wrong. Even if we are right, we are most assuredly incomplete.” At best, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, all we see is a dim reflection in a mirror.

The problem with assuming that we see more clearly and completely than we actually do is not simply that we don’t learn anymore or that our errors are uncorrected. A deeper problem is how that attitude impacts the people around us. As mentioned earlier, the Pharisees’ attitude stirred such fear in the hearts of the healed man’s parents that they refused to stand with their own son.

I also wonder how the attitude of the Pharisees impacted the man born blind himself, not just in this moment but throughout his years of growth and development. He grew up as one who was condemned by those around him. He was unacceptable, unworthy, punished by God. He had been rejected by those who knew, those who could see, those who understood. He was viewed as unclean by those who wanted everyone to know that they didn’t have any dirt on their hands.

I pray that we as a church are not followers of the Pharisees but followers of Jesus. I hope we are willing to get our hands dirty and risk our own rejection for the sake of those who live in condemnation.

I suspect that we all know what it feels like to be the blind man in this story. We are aware of our own limitations and challenges. Perhaps we even wonder if the challenges we face are punishments for our failures. We are fearful of rejection and have often experienced rejection by the words and actions of those who think they know.

The good news in John 9 is that Jesus is willing to get his hands dirty, touch our eyes with mud and invite us to wash, bringing us healing and hope. When we struggle to understand the healing that has happened to us, Jesus continues to seek us out, walking with us even when others reject the healing we have experienced. Jesus leads us beyond healing to the experience of loving embrace.

The pool we are invited to wash in is named “Siloam,” which means “sent.” Not only are we given new insight and understanding, we are given purpose and a calling. We are invited to share the story of our journey so that those who think they know have the opportunity to see the limits of their knowledge and discover something new.

Our world and our own nation are filled with embittered political and religious rhetoric that is divisive. The results have ranged from broken relationships to political gridlock to the violence of warfare. We in Mennonite Church USA seem tempted to follow the culture into these practices with speech and actions that divide families, congregations and conferences.

Many have responded to this divisive reality by striving for clearer articulation of what they know to be true. Each seems convinced this additional information is important both for the defense of their position as well as to convince the other to embrace their understanding.

Perhaps the way through these difficult realities is not through new information and clearer articulation of what we know but by a renewed embrace of our ignorance. Bill Vitek and Wes Jackson in their introduction to The Virtues of Ignorance ask, “How might we interact differently in the world, if we began every endeavor and conversation with the humbling assumption that human understanding is limited by an ignorance that no amount of additional information can mitigate? Might we be more cautious and more willing to listen to others?”

Perhaps there are more important things than being right: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness, self-control and humility.

If we acknowledge our blindness, perhaps we will find forgiveness. As long as we are sure that we can see, I suspect that our sin will remain.

John C. Murray is pastor of Hesston (Kan.) Mennonite Church. This article is adapted from a sermon originally preached at Hesston Mennonite Church on March 30.